BOOK REVIEW - Witch & Wizard (Novel)
Mike
Young Readers ISBN: 978-0316036242 320 Pages Hardcover $17.99
(U.S.)
http://www.hachettebookgroup.com/publishing_little-brown-and-company.aspx
This is a seriously strange book (and trust me, I know seriously
strange). It is Harry Potter meets the M.Y.T.H. series (by Robert
Aspirin) on caffeine overload. And this is just the introductory
volume of a new series.
Within the first quarter of the book we meet two teens who don’t know
they have magical abilities (I’m not a wizard. I’m just Harry.” [The
Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling]), get a reference to The Groaning
Bones (a pun on The Rolling Stones ala the M.Y.T.H. series) and have a
new political party suspending constitutional rights.
Whit (Whitford) and Wisty (Wisteria) Allgood have grown up being told
they are special by their parents. Now they are accused of being
deviants by the New Order (N.O.). For the crime of being deviants
they will be tried (no lawyers to defend them, no guaranteed rights)
and when convicted (no doubt about that conclusion) they and their
parents will be executed.
I encountered the same problems I had with the Harry Potter series –
the story is so compelling that the reader is swept along and doesn’t
have the ability to slow down and savor it. Then there is the wait
between volumes – I am very impatient.
The chapters are short (an average of 3 pages), the action is
frenetic, and the emotions almost overwhelming. All of these
characteristics are designed to hold the reader’s interest and help to
speed them along to the conclusion.
This book will be hitting the shelves on the 14th of December, just in
time to pick up a copy and slip it under the Yule tree. After you
read it I am sure you will be as anxious as I am for the next
installment to come out.